Scariest of all hockey injuries still a looming threat to NHLers

Philadelphia, PA (SportsNetwork.com) – Gary Bettman has done much to change the tenor of National Hockey League contests in the last decade by encouraging the enaction of a set of minor rules and regulations instituted to curb the prevalence of fighting and its lasting effects on those who made careers out of boxing on ice.

He’s taken every opportunity to promote the Board of Governors’ efforts to stem the rising tide of hits to the head which swirled in the middle portion of the last decade, so that future players would not see their careers ruined in a split-second of well-executed timing and poor sportsmanship as in the case of Marc Savard.

But there’s one type of danger to the livelihood of NHL players from the superstar to the 23rd man which still exists in gruesome quantities, that neither Bettman, the 30 owners, nor coaching staffs can accurately predict or plan for: that of injuries which result from skate cuts.

Stars defenseman Patrik Nemeth will be lost for the remainder of the season after suffering what can only be surmised as such a deep laceration of his arm that surgery and rehabilitation would take months at the minimum. It all happened in several frantic seconds in the first period of Saturday’s 6-5 overtime home loss to the Philadelphia Flyers.

In a scrum along the right-wing boards in the neutral zone, right in front of the Flyers’ bench, Nemeth and R.J. Umberger battled for a loose puck. Both men fell to the ice, but as Nemeth arose, he skated slowly, his left hand holding his right, whose hand was obviously drooping at the wrist. Nemeth was rushed by team personnel into the locker room, a towel wrapped tightly around his arm at the point of the injury.

Slow-motion replay revealed the grim details. As Umberger fell uncontrolled, with Nemeth above him, the former’s skate made contact with the latter’s arm in a freak happenstance.

“I think it involves everything,” Stars head coach Lindy Ruff said to the Dallas Morning News on Monday. “When I say severe, that’s probably an understatement. First and foremost, for his sake, I hope it’s a full recovery.”

As with all professional sports performed at top speeds or at weights and muscle mass higher than the average person, there is inherent risk in participating. However, it’s not unreasonable to expect a player to assume the ultimate danger in the course of action, whether intentional or accidental.

Hockey players are particularly susceptible to the random chance of a harmful meeting with a knife edge, plying their trade on razor-sharp blades less than an inch thick and hurling their bodies at each other with little regard for angle of attack and posture.

The results are always disastrous.

A skate blade from Hall-of-Fame L.A. King Marcel Dionne managed to make contact near several crucial arteries of Rick MacLeish on April 1, 1978, when the high-scoring Philadelphia winger dove to block a pass and instead wound up bleeding over every towel the equipment managers had on the bench. The impact of the injury was in no way diminished when MacLeish later quipped: “I didn’t realize I was in trouble until I took a drag of a cigarette and the smoke came out of my neck.”

March 22, 1989 in Buffalo: Following a goalmouth collision with Blues winger Steve Tuttle, Sabres goaltender Clint Malarchuk emerged from the scrum with his jugular vein slashed wide open and bleeding profusely on the ice with every pulse. In an interview 20 years after the incident, Malarchuk’s mother said she felt like she was watching her son die.

February 11, 2008 in Sunrise, FL: Panthers forward Richard Zednik’s carotid artery was cut by the accidental brush from a skate of teammate Olli Jokinen, who was dragged down by a Sabres defender along the end boards. Zednik went on to liken the sudden rush of pain to a stabbing, and noted the realization of exactly what was happening to him heightening his fear that he wouldn’t get to see his daughter grow up.

Donald Audette nearly had his career ended and his right hand rendered useless on December 1, 2001 in Montreal, when the then-Canadiens forward suffered a traumatic cut to his right wrist from the skate of Rangers forward Radek Dvorak. The image of Audette, pained and panicked as he skated to the bench and attempted to hold his hand steady as all tendons but one were severed, is unshakeable.

“It was not too pretty,” said Audette, who finally retired in 2004. “I had nightmares the first few nights after it happened. I would look down at my arm and every time the artery pumped, blood was pumping out of my arm. “About two hours after the surgery the doctors told my family I was out of danger, so I guess that means I was in danger. But as I look back on the play, I probably would do the same thing again. It was a freak accident. I hope to be able to find a spot where I don’t have that fear.”

Who would have thought a potentially-tragic injury could happen in warmups, when the pace of loosening up is considerably slower than the game itself? Nobody, until Edmonton?s Taylor Hall ended up with Frankenstein-like scar wending its way from his forehead to the temples and near his part thanks to an ill-timed meeting with teammate Corey Potter’s skate on January 17, 2012.

Flyers forward Brayden Schenn miraculously escaped a worse fate last season, when he was slashed in the torso by Devils winger Dainius Zubrus when Zubrus was torqued sideways by contact between the two. Amazing that he didn’t suffer more than a superficial cut, even more amazing that battlefield care required nothing more than airplane glue to close the wound.

All of those were accidental occurrences. One which stands out as an egregious violation of hockey ethics, happened on February 13, 2013 in Pittsburgh, as Penguins master of mayhem Matt Cooke appeared to intentionally stab at the back of Senators defenseman Erik Karlsson’s leg with his skate blade. Karlsson had a potential Norris Trophy-level season derailed and his Achilles tendon nearly severed due to Cooke’s effort.

“I’ve played long enough to know who’s going to hit you and who’s not,” said an understandably bitter Karlsson more than a week later. “As I always do, I moved at the last second and he missed me, but he still went for me. He reached out his leg, which I don’t think he had any reason to do. I don’t understand why it happened. He had full control of his body, and he knows exactly what he’s doing out there. That’s why I’m sitting here with my leg in a cast.”

In the aftermath of the Karlsson imbroglio, more players gravitated towards the use of Kevlar socks to prevent the possibility of the macabre. Of course, it’s not a significant majority, and the furor quickly died. If an equipment manufacturer could produce an effective Kevlar-based flak jacket or pants, they’d better do it now.

Kevlar jerseys won’t add any more bulk to a skater’s largesse, but Kevlar isn’t a total panacea. There’s still the matter of exposed skin between the uniform sleeve and the glove along with unprotected areas of the face even with a half-shield and the torso if a player chooses to wear nothing beneath a jersey.

Nemeth, at 22 years of age, will almost certainly come back just as strong as he was before the unkindest cut. However, to truly find a way to eliminate the majority of these incidents, the players themselves have to keep these gory injuries in mind when finding consensus on issues like implementing mandatory face shields.

Bettman should take note: though lawyers may try, they can’t legislate random happenstance. He’s got greater protection of players through fists and sticks and elbows, now it’s time for the league as a whole to seriously consider the question of protection from skates.

Categorized in: NHL